When Sasuke Loved
by Lada Hitam
Summary: Itachi regrets things he didn't do. SasuNaru. Slight Uchihacest. Now betaed.


Beta-ed by Helgaleena. All remaining mistakes are mine.

Inspired by this quote from a Harry Potter fanfic, In November by Telanu:  
_This was what love did. A man like Snape would love only once, if he let himself, and it would ruin him, it would obliterate him, it would run him gibbering and mad into the ground at a cruel Lord's feet, it would shake the earth and sky above him and below him until there was nothing in between that could sustain. Voldemort was very glad he had never loved._

**When Sasuke Loved**

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Itachi had left Konoha a long time ago, leaving a river of spilt blood from the murdered Uchiha Clan, and awakening a bottomless pit of profound hate from the last of Uchiha's progeny, whom he'd left alive. But he had been watching it, watching his beloved foolish little brother, forever.

Except when he'd hit Sasuke for being a nuisance while he was inspecting that Kyuubi's container, the one that his little brother had protected by foolishly, recklessly sacrificing himself, Itachi had done nothing whatsoever all those times. He shouldn't have done that. He should have done something, perhaps taunting Sasuke more to kindle his hatred, or even reprimanding him for forgetting his sacred task of avenging his clan, after he'd seen the first dangerous sign in that sacrificial act.

Itachi did nothing when Sasuke had failed to kill _his best friend_ in order to gain the Mangekyou Sharingan he so desperately wanted. And still nothing, when that fox boy had dragged Sasuke back to Konoha after four years of being Orochimaru's plaything, or when they had healed together, and carefully, slowly mended their broken friendship, or even when the ice guarding Sasuke's heart had been thawed by that naïve blond boy.

Maybe this was entirely his fault, that he couldn't help but watching Sasuke being reborn once more, baptized by the bright light of his little brother's most important, precious person, watching his little brother smiled like the sweet little boy he'd used to be a lifetime ago. It was solely his fault that he couldn't lift a hand to do something that could have prevented the definitely upcoming disaster. As a good big brother, he should have known better.

Now that it was too late, he could only watch, as he had been doing forever, as the bride's white kimono turned red with blood, as the ex-teammates and ex-teachers and a whole lot of other ninjas got killed brutally, as the blond, blue-eyed groom and his little brother were finishing the battle that should have ended years ago in the Valley of the End. 

Itachi watched helplessly as a fatal Rasengan that finally dealt properly blew a hole in Sasuke's chest, while his little brother, spurned by his most important person, used his own bare hand to rip out that person's beating heart. The finally obtained Mangekyou Sharingan flashing a beautiful crimson for the first and the last time in those eyes, Sasuke's hand tightly clutched the dead organ, as if, by doing that, he could make that precious person his.

In the end, Itachi was left with Sasuke's dead body, cradled tenderly in his arms, while the wind carried away the whispered words full of regrets.

"My foolish little brother, haven't I told you to hate? Hate and live a long life, Sasuke. Not love, never love."

It had cost an entire Uchiha Clan, except the one he loved, when Itachi loved, but it had cost an entire Konoha when Sasuke loved. Because when Sasuke loved, he needed. When a man is deprived of the air he needs to breathe, he would be destroyed; but when Sasuke was deprived of the love he needed to sustain his life, he would destroy himself and take everything down with him.

FIN  
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Don't know why this one just wrote itself, I just struggled with the grammar . Anyway, I was thinking about the difference between "need" and "want", when the words "When Sasuke loved, he needed." popped in my mind. Then I pondered about the idea for a while, and finally came to conclusion that when Sasuke loved, he'd love so deeply that when that person rejected him, he couldn't and wouldn't take it lying down. If Itachi could have a dark side, why couldn't Sasuke? So I think when the love of his life (which is Naruto, if you still don't know/realize it yet ) married another woman (which is Hinata, because I just can't picture Naruto with Sakura/Ino/OFC/OC), Sasuke just snapped and killed Hinata. Other people were casualties of his rage. :) And Naruto, Naruto was very angry and in despair, he didn't have any doubt left to kill Sasuke, while Sasuke himself was ready to take Naruto down with him.

Why could Sasuke destroy Konoha easily? you probably wonder. Remember the saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned" (thank you **Peridots13** for telling me this )? Well, this Sasuke is the perfect example of that saying.

It's written in Itachi's POV because I read too much of Uchihacest and I can't shake the idea that the true reason Itachi did all those horrible things is because he wanted to protect Sasuke and that deep down, he still love his foolish little brother And I credited CLAMP's Tokyo Babylon for the scene where Sasuke ripped out Naruto's heart.

C & C are welcomed!  
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Replies to reviews:

**Nadramon: **Thank you for reading the story and loving it :) Actually, I never think that Naruto won't ever turn down Sasuke or leave him. You see, if I write, I really have problem with making the story as canon as possible. I admit that I love SasuNaru, but I can't write their happy love story if it can't be fitted to canon. I want to write a fic, a SasuNaru love story that when you read it, you'll think that probably, someday in the future, you'll read it in the real book, the one written by Masashi Kishimoto.

Of course the Itachi that I wrote doesn't fit into canon, but we don't know much yet about Itachi, right? So, I took liberty of his reason in killing and all.

Yeah, ItaNaru is rather hard to comprehend. So far I haven't found a good, plausible ItaNaru fic. But I do love reading ItaNary crack fics .

**Clueless97: **Thank you beams

**Fantastical Queen Ebony Black: **Yup, the author whom I quoted is a great author. I don't know if you read Harry Potter fanfics or not, but Telanu's Tea Series is a very well known story in HP fandom.

I'm glad that you like the end, because that's my favourite part, too . And the fic is beta-ed now.

I'm honoured to be placed on your list, so, no, I don't have any problem with that.

**Blueberry shortcake: **Thank you


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